As part of my rehabilitation back into the Order I have to undergo a series of tasks designed to humble the spirit. This my due lot after the great failure of being captured on a mission.

My first trial of the day is The Way of the Fluffy End of the Lollipop, which entails cleaning out the latrines. Now do not let this conjur up images of shining porcelain and rubber gloves. Ninja toilets are - as one would expect - unpleasant and fraught with lurking danger. They consist of a long log suspended over a deep ditch. The cleaning operation requires crawling through said trench with a large brush - or in my case, my fur.

This task has been made less bearable by Brother Niguri and his friends, who appear to have been subsisting on a diet of broccoli vindaloos and laxatives - and who "fail" to see me in the trench.

However, there seems to have been an instance of instant karma here because each one of the them has been hospitalised with a series of mysterious bowel perforations. These are exceedingly large and painful in a way that baffles the doctors.

When I heard of this I mused on the workings of sin and fate a while. Then I returned to my second trial of the day, loading hay into a barn ... with a large pitchfork.

Friends, ah friends, I look with shame at my last entry. The pride. The hubris. The talk of "large cheques".
So long ago. So much has changed. So many blossoms have flowed under the bridge since then. I have suffered much and have learned much.

It shames me further to confess that I am no longer a fully fledged Ninja (Junior Class, Order of the Shape of the Pear). I am now a lowly Adept once more, and this only thanks to the mercy of Master Hamzo. Without his intercession, my skin would be a fur rug in the Order's library and my genitals would have been sold to aphrodisiac manufacturers.

I have brought disgrace on myself and the Order by committing the only act deemed unacceptable for a ninja. I got caught.

As for my long silence on this and other matters, let me put it this way: it's not easy being a panda in prison. Especially not a pretty one...

Please accept my apologies for not writing in a while. My agent has advised me to reduce my output in advance of a six-figure book deal, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on the Way of the Great Silence Before The Large Cheque.

True, no money has been forthcoming. And, come to think of it, I have never met my agent face-to-face. She has, however, instructed me to wear lady's underwear and to grab the private parts of any senior member of the order I encounter. I note that Brother Niguri is suspiciously cheerful at the moment. Hmmmmm.

Before Christmas, I was sent on a secret mission by Master Toro, the dojo's Finance Director. He told me only I could pull it off. I was to lie in wait outside a certain business watching for one individual - for weeks if necessary. I was given a brief description of the target and told to kill on sight. Such was the sensitivity of the mission that it would require special concealment measures. As Master Toro had only very briefly briefed me, I asked him for more details, to which
he replied: "Ninjas who would be worth more to the Order as a bucket of
ingredients for traditional medicines should not ask too many questions
when work comes their way."

So it was that I was dressed, with the help of some adepts, in a disguise that so encumbered me I could barely move and could not see down at all. I was then driven at speed to the location and placed in some kind of hidden bunker. I was not told where so that, if captured, I could not betray the plan. I was told to blend in, to be still, to be silent and to watch for a gaunt Arab with a black beard and a kidney dialysis machine.

I have barely blinked since mid-December, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on the Way of the Ongoing Eye. I have the image of the shop I was watching burned into my retinas. Because I was there during the pre-Christmas rush I also have the sounds of Slade's Merry Christmas and crying children ringing in my ears. My target did not appear.

Eventually, after dark yesterday, I was relieved by a giggling Brother Niguri. He removed me from my "bunker" and helped me out of my disguise. It was then - and only then - I realised that I, a trained ninja, a feared killer, a being who has transformed himself into a living shuriken, had been hired out to the nearby shopping mall as ... Frosty the sodding Snowman for their Christmas grotto.

And, oddly, Osama bin Laden did not pop into our branch of Argos to do his shopping.

Christmas is not normally celebrated in the Order. Most of the Brothers and
Sisters are Daoists, Confucians or Buddhists. And all of us are hired killers -
not noted for their Yuletide cheer.

However, I miss all the tinsel and the magic, childhood feeling that
Christmas Eve brings, so I suggested traditional British celebrations should be
adopted for our workplace, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on
the Way of the Ho Ho Ho.

When asked how British people celebrated the birth of our Saviour, Jesus
Christ, in the context of the workplace, I quickly explained the basic
tenets:

We had a bomb scare at the fortress this afternoon. A suspicious package was found in the munitions store. It was suspicious because it did not look like a big bag of things that go bang.

Fortunately, Honoured Master Utsubo, our resident explosives expert in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on Never Cutting the Red Wire, was on hand. He quickly verified that it was an improvised explosive device, had the room cleared of all ordnance and prepared to carry out a controlled explosion.

Then Brother Wakasagi, our Chief Blog Guru, got involved. (Actually, I don't remember the Order ever appointing a Chief Blog Guru but he insists that's what he is.) Brother Wakasagi stopped Honoured Master Utsubo's work, saying: "Man, you are sooooooo last century. Before we do anything else we should consult the online community."

Honoured Master Utsubo replied: "Why? This is a bomb. We need to detonate it in a controlled fashion."

Brother Wakasagi: "That's only one opinion. I suggest we involve e-experts worldwide to open our minds to other possibilities. Perhaps we do not have to blow up the bomb."

Before Honoured Master Utsubo could insert his spanner into Brother Wakasagi's I/O port, Honoured Mistress Moroko, our Head of Ninja Facilitation Facilities, stepped in: "Does this mean we could save money on repairs? I think we should listen to our Chief Blog Guru."

"But," said Honoured Master Utsubo, "I have trained all my life to render explosives safe. I have studied the most arcane Ninjitsu texts on the subject. Since I was five years old I have been defusing bombs. My father used to throw them at me: happy times... "

As he reminisced about his childhood, Brother Wakasagi piped up: "Well, according to the How To Defuse Bombs Blog, we should cut the red wire. There are 27 comments that agree. And four that say cut the green one. One comment says you can make your penis bigger but it does not elaborate."

Honoured Master Utsubo exploded (not literally). "That is rubbish. Only in Hollywood movies do people cut wires. The only way to make this thing safe is to detonate it in a controlled way."

Brother Wakasagi said: "Well, I've found 34 online experts who disagree. The net is like a giant brain and it disagrees with your old-fashioned, narrow thinking. Who are you to dictate whose point of view is valid?"

Honoured Mistress Moroko then spoke: "Brother Wakasagi's argument is powerful, particularly if I can save 30 Yuan from my budget by not redecorating the room."

Other directors of the Order who had appeared agreed with her. Brother Wakasagi then picked up a pair of pliers. He approached the bomb. And Honoured Master Utsubo started running.

Our Chief Blog Guru saw the old ninja go and shouted: "Lolz, n00b, move with the times, you dinosaur."

Those were his last words. We were going to dig Honoured Mistress Moroko out of the ruins of the west wing but Honoured Masters Toro and Hamzo, who had been absent, told us that we should not be hasty and a full cost-benefit analysis should be undertaken before any rescue.

I encountered Adept Hoshi-garei in the Lotus Garden this afternoon. This is unusual as he works in technical development and is not usually seen in daylight. ("Technical development" are the pointy-heads who invent insane and dangerous gadgets for the ninjas of the Order. They must not be confused with the IT workers who run our computer system as the gadgets sometimes work.)

Adept Hoshi-garei was elated. I could tell that by the way he nearly raised his eyes from the ground when he spoke to me. That and the fact he was extravagantly chewing a pen rather than his normal pencil.

"Adept Wasabi," he intoned. "For 33 years I have been working on a portable device to create power by causing excitation in liquid through the application of heat. And today, after many frustrations and doubts, I have finally created a working prototype. Would you like a bite of pen to celebrate?"

I declined his kind offer and listened as he described his device.

After a while, I chose my words carefully, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on The Way Of The Treading Softly On Dreams. "Adept Hoshi-garei," I whispered. "You do realise you've spent your entire working life struggling to invent the kettle, don't you?"

He did not reply but stood in silence. He's still there now, seven hours later. A dribble of ink dropping from his chin.

Today, I had cause to complain about the dreadful state of the green tea from the Order's canteen. I strode up to manager of the establishment and roared at her that the foul alleged liquid in the communal dispensing trough was almost as bad as drinking Budweiser.

"Honoured adept," she replied. "We don't have a communal dispensing trough. If you mean that item over there it's the men's urinal."

There is more blood on the floor of the Order today. This time metaphorical. The HR department have been busy shaking out the well-paid, the old and the ones who crossed some moronic bureaucrat many moons ago.

Many honoured brethren are now seeking assassination opportunities elsewhere, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on the Way of the Involuntarily Outsourced.

Master

Tetorododokishin, the head of the Ninja Change Management Section, tells us that by having fewer ninjas the order will be able to do its job better. But to me that sounds like the time Brother Niguri pasted fortune cookies into the Big Book of Zen Paradoxes.

No amount of platitudes about "lean", "streamlined" and "dead wood" can hide what is going on here. Cost-cutting is the first resort of the talentless.

Sister Engawa rushed into the Basho Leisure Complex and Sports Bar this morning screaming: "There's been a murder. There's been a murder."

"Honoured Sister," I replied. "We are hired killers living in an ancient fortress filled with assassins, it would be worrying if there were not any murders."

"Shut it, bamboo face," she replied, not strictly in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on The Way of the Respect for Minorities. "One of us has been murdered."

She was right. Master Shoku-chuudoku, the head of IT for the Order, was dead. Apparently, one of our number - who, no-one is quite sure - had lost some vital documentation when his supposedly hi-tech Ninja laptop crashed. Master Shoku-chuudoku had told him that, in order to make the thing function, the perp had to "turn it off and turn it on again". Apparently, the data was still lost and the IT guru informed his attacker he should not have turned off his machine without saving the data. "But I could not save the data. The laptopn had crashed," replied the attacker. Master Shoku-chuudoku then retorted, perhaps unwisely: "Read the ******* manual, already."

We know all this because the account was written in Master Shoku-chuudoku's still warm blood around the walls of the main courtyard of our fortress.

Master Shoku-chuudoku was beaten to a pulp with a keyboard and then had a series of electronic components inserted into every imaginable part of his body. He was then connected to the mains and "rebooted".

Master O'konomi, our head pathologist, estimated that he was attacked where he was found in the main courtyard, it would have taken him seven hours to die and that his screams would have been audible for a distance of fourteen miles.

Nobody heard a thing. I certainly didn't, even when I had to step over Master Shoku-chuudoku on my way to the Executive Restroom.